The University of Southern Mississippi Ghosts of the Mind ...

The University of Southern Mississippi

Ghosts of the Mind:
The Supernatural and Madness in Victorian Gothic Literature

by

Stephanie Craig

A Prospectus of
A Thesis

Submitted to the Honors College of
The University of Southern Mississippi

in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts
In the Department of English

December 2011

Approved by

_________________________________________
Katherine Cochran
Associate Professor of English

_________________________________________
Eric Tribunella, Chair
Department of English

_________________________________________
David R. Davies, Dean
Honors College

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Chapter One
The Victorian Era saw the emergence of social interest in the concept of the supernatural
and in psychology. As these two areas developed, literature began to exhibit paranormal
phenomenon and depictions of mental illness more frequently, often at the same time. The
literary genre which exhibited these themes most prominently is known as Gothic Literature.
Gothic Literature, particularly the Victorian Gothic, is generally domestic in nature, taking place
mainly indoors and dealing with superficial social issues and serious personal issues. It focuses
on characters’ individual thoughts and introspections instead of their outward actions. It is the
Gothic’s supernatural themes, however, which set it apart from other literature at the time. The
Gothic explores the paranormal world as well as the mind, often bringing characters’ sanity into
question by describing strange, apparently paranormal, incidents which are generally only visible
to them. Gothic literature brings the narrator’s reliability into question using this technique and
often hints at madness or mental instability in its characters.
A primary example of the paranormal’s role in determining sanity can be found in Henry
James’s “The Turn of the Screw.” James’ novella describes the experiences of a governess in a
household which is under the influence of two spirits that come and go as they please. She
becomes convinced that the children can see the ghosts as well. Despite her attempts to bring the
existence and nature of the ghosts to light, her efforts only serve to further question her mental
stability.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s cautionary tale “The Yellow Wallpaper” operates in a very
similar strain. However, Gilman’s short story leaves no doubt as to the protagonist’s mental
state. After being prescribed a rest cure, the unnamed protagonist finds herself confined to a
single room in a large house she and her husband are renting to help her cope with what is

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suggested to be post-partum depression. Although she is sometimes allowed to sit in the garden
or with the family in other rooms of the house, she is mainly restricted to her designated room.
As she whiles away the hours in her domestic prison, she becomes fascinated by her room’s
horrendous yellow wallpaper. At first, she merely spends her time absorbed by its overtly
offensive design and color. However, as the story progresses, she begins to see shapes and faces
in the wallpaper and believes that she can see a woman crawling around behind the paper’s
design, struggling to be free. The short story ends with its protagonist crawling around the room
rubbing her shoulder into the wall, a sight so shocking it causes her sturdy husband to faint at the
sight.

Both works reflect the supernatural as not only a possibility, but also a strong implication
of the protagonists’s mental instabilities. The presentation of the supernatural alongside mental
illness, however, is not restricted to these two works alone. Gothic Literature, as a genre, often
uses supernatural elements and happenings to prompt its characters to question their sanity. This
development can lead modern scholars to examine the reasons behind such a strong, specific
trend in a genre of literature. By examining Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” and
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it is possible to outline and interpret the
instances of supernatural phenomena within the context of mental illness or instability and
uncover the possible reasons behind the frequency with which the occur together in Gothic
Literature. These two texts will help answer the question: how does Gothic Literature use the
supernatural to portray, or act as an indicator of, madness as seen in Henry James’s The Turn of
the Screw and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper?

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Chapter Two
Since the purpose of this research is to uncover the connection between the supernatural
and madness in Victorian thought as shown in Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” and
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it is important to establish what has been
and has not been previously studied. Though there have been studies done about the
supernatural and madness in both works individually, studies which compare both works with or
without attention to their testimonies about Victorian culture have not been found. This gap in
the literature of these two pieces will offer a strong purpose for this research.
Literature examining Gothic Literature as a whole must be taken into consideration as
well as literature targeted at analyzing the works themselves. The literature available for both
works contains much analysis of both the supernatural and madness in the two works. These
analyses offer an in depth look into the roles of these two themes in these works. Some analyses
offer insight into the mindset of the authors as they wrote them or offer social contexts which
may have prompted these works. By utilizing these analyses, the researcher can focus her
research on uncovering the possible links the works may have to the lives of their authors and the
societies in which they were written, revealing the motivations behind their creations and the
cultural influences they may exhibit.

SOURCES RELATED TO VICTORIAN CULTURE
As Victorian culture and thought will play an important role in research of the Gothic

subgenre, the following sources must be taken into account. Peter Lamont’s article “Spiritualism
and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence” examines spiritualism and the emergence of séances in
the Victorian Era, which were often cited as a cause of interest in the supernatural or occult.

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Jennifer Bann’s “Ghostly Hands and Ghostly Agency: The Changing Figure of the Nineteenth-
Century Specter” observes the connection between spiritism and the Victorian ghost story. She
argues that the development of the Victorian ghost story is ultimately a manifestation of
emerging concepts about the dead. ‘The Trouble with Ghost Seeing: Vision, Ideology, and
Genre in the Victorian Ghost Story” by Srdjan Smajic examines how the nature of specters
changes through the transition from the 18th to 19th Centuries. Smajic finds these changes to be
the result of cultural shifts and that the specters alter and the social and cultural mindset alters.
“The Meaning of Mental Illness within the Victorian Mental Health Act: The Problem of
Definition” by Paul D. O’Neal assesses the broad definition of what was considered “mental
illness” in Victorian thought. O’Neal argues that the definition is too broad and must be trimmed
down.

SOURCES RELATED TO GOTHIC LITERATURE
Sources relevant to this study which examine the human psyche include an original essay

by Sigmund Freud entitled “The Uncanny.” This essay examines why we interpret various
situations or occurrences as scary or eerie and is useful when examining basic elements of the
supernatural in Gothic Literature. Julian Wolfreys’s article “Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality,
Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature” goes a step farther than Freud’s “The Uncanny.” Wolfreys
examines occurrences of the supernatural in Victorian Literature, especially in Gothic subgenre.
The article explores the reasons behind the use of the supernatural in Gothic Literature and
attempts to explain why it is a common theme in the genre. “The Ivory Leg in the Ebony
Cabinet,” an article by Thomas Cooley, further examines the ways in which the Victorian mind
viewed madness, especially early in the period. This source helps to explain and understand the

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ways in which society at the time understood madness and can lead to explanations about the
presence and explanations of madness in Gothic Literature.

In order to connect the supernatural to madness in Gothic Literature, Tom A. Williams’s
“The Origin of Supernatural Explanations” and the article “Developmental Changes in the Use
of Supernatural Explanations for Unusual Events” by Jacqueline D. Wooley, Chelsea A.
Cornelius, and Walter Lacy will help to explain why the supernatural and superstitions are often
used to explain strange events or visions. Williams’s piece was written in 1915, shortly after the
end of the Victorian Period, and can provide insight into the views of superstition and the
supernatural at the time. Williams also explores the reasoning behind the existence of
superstitions and their usefulness to the human mind. Meanwhile, the source by Wooley,
Cornelius, and Lacy explores how and why people try to explain that which they do not
understand by attributing it to the supernatural. Additional information regarding these two
themes in Gothic Literature can be found in Gilbert and Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic:
The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. While this work focuses
primarily on the literary feminist movement, it offers information on Gothic women’s writing as
the contexts in which they were written.

SOURCES CONCENTRATING ON THE TURN OF THE SCREW
For the analyses of the individual texts, it will be necessary to apply sources which

examine each text individually. “Ghost Ambiguity: Presuppositional Constructions in the Turn
of the Screw” by Helen Aristar Dry and Susan Kucinkas explores the ways in which James uses
syntax to create ambiguity around the governess’s mental stability. Ernest Tuveson’s “The Turn
of the Screw: A Palimpsest” explores both possibilities of the novella, taking a close look at the

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interpretation that she is indeed seeing specters as well as the interpretation that she is actually
mentally ill and has not experienced any supernatural phenomena at all. Thomas J. Bently also
explores these two interpretations in “Henry James’s ‘General Vision of Evil’ in the Turn of the
Screw.” This article acknowledges the two levels of meaning in the novella and explores the
ways in which they are intertwined.

SOURCES CONCENTRATING ON THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
Sources which analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” specifically include Loralee MacPike’s

“Environment as Psychological Symbolism in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” and Carol Margaret
Davidson’s “Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets in ‘The Yellow
Wallpaper’.” MacPike concentrates on the symbolism of environment throughout the entire
short story and draws meaning from the room itself to the wallpaper in general. Davidson’s
article explores and examines the story’s supernatural and psychological elements and explains
their purpose in the story.

FINAL LITERATURE METHODS
The logic surrounding the research question suggests that the emergence of paranormal

interests and developing psychological theories prompted an association between the two in
Victorian thought, causing works which blend the supernatural and madness to become more
frequently written, creating the Gothic subgenre. Using the existing literature, the researcher can
examine the possibility of this phenomenon and connect these themes to one another in Gothic
Literature.

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Chapter Three
By examining Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
“The Yellow Wallpaper,” it is possible to outline and interpret the instances of supernatural
phenomena within the context of mental illness or instability and uncover the possible reasons
behind the frequency with which the occur together in Gothic Literature. For her study, the
researcher has chosen to concentrate on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” James’s novella The Turn of the Screw tells the tale
of a governess who finds herself plagued by specters in the home of her employers. By the end
of the novella, it is not made clear whether there are actually spirits haunting the house or the
governess has actually lost her mind. The uncertainty of these two possibilities leaves the
governess’s paranormal experiences open to the interpretation that she has either experienced a
supernatural event or that she has begun to suffer a mental breakdown. Gilman’s short story
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is less ambiguous about the reality of the supernatural. The
protagonist, a young woman prescribed the rest cure for her post-partum depression, falls
steadily into madness as the story goes on, believing that she has seen strange figures in the
wallpaper and that there is a woman behind the wallpaper’s dizzying pattern trying to get out.
By the end of the tale, it is clear that she has completely lost her mind and there is no question as
to the reality of the hallucinations she has experienced. She has not experienced any
supernatural phenomenon, but instead has been seeing supernatural images due to her declining
mental state.

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VARIABLES
The proposed study will focus on the relationship of two central variables popular in the

Gothic literary genre – the “supernatural” (including the “paranormal”), and “madness.” Use of
these terms will correspond closely to ordinary language usage. The supernatural is defined as
“of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or
phenomena; abnormal.” The paranormal is defined as “of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence
of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory
perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.” “Madness” (used interchangeably
with “mental illness”) is defined as “any of various disorders in which a person's thoughts,
emotions, or behavior are so abnormal as to cause suffering to himself, herself, or other people.”
The researcher will use these definitions as a guideline when identifying these themes in the
works she is reviewing.

SAMPLE
The study sample will consist of the comprehensive set of passages from the selected

texts in which either of the two variables is evident. An example of this type of passage is
available in the following “Methods” section.
METHODS

Through multiple readings of the selected texts, the researcher will identify all instances
of the supernatural by identifying scenes, passages, or instances in which the narrator or one of
the characters identifies something out of the ordinary which cannot be explained by rationale or
which suggests the presence of a paranormal entity. These instances include ghostly apparitions,
strange visions, disembodied voices or sounds, or general eerie visions or events which cannot be

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otherwise explained. Instances of mental illness will be characterized by signs of mental
weakness in the individual. These signs will indicate that what the individual is experiencing is
not actually happening and is present in their mind only.

The researcher will record each instance of these two variables as well as their context,
purpose in the story, and how it may be interpreted as a representation of the supernatural,
madness, or both. She will document how these findings and interpretations of the text implicate
the use of the supernatural to identify or explain madness and how each author uses these
examples to do so. An example passage from Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw follows:

“How can I retrace the strange steps of my obsession? There were times of our being
together when I would have been ready to swear that, literally, in my presence, but with my
direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome” (James 53).

The above passage displays elements of both psychological and supernatural phenomena.
Here, the governess exhibits feelings of paranoia, as she believes that the children are hiding
things from her but cannot readily present proof, and openly admits that the idea of strange
presences in the house consumes her with obsession. However, this passage also suggests that
there are entities in the house which she can sense. However, she is not sure if others sense them
as well. This is an example of supernatural phenomena. While this passage exhibits both
themes, it does not indicate the verity of one theme over another. After analyzing passages such
as this from each work individually, the researcher will compare and contrast the two works side
by side. This comparison and contrast will demonstrate the role of the supernatural and madness
in these two texts as well as Gothic literature as a whole.

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References
Bann, Jennifer. “Ghostly Hands and Ghost Agency: The Changing Figure of the Nineteenth

Century Specter.” Victorian Studies 51.4 (2009): 663-695. Academic Search Premiere.
Web. 28 September 2011.
Bently, Thomas J. “Henry James’s ‘General Vision of Evil’ in The Turn of the Screw.” Studies
in English Literature, 1500-1900. 9.4 (1969): 721-735.
Cooley, Thomas. The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet: Madness, Race, and Gender in Victorian
America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.
Davidson, Carol Margaret. “Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets in ‘The
Yellow Wallpaper’.” Women’s Studies 33.1 (2004): 47-75. Academic Search Premiere.
Web. 28 September 2011.
Dry, Helen Aristar and Susan Kucinkas. “Ghost Ambiguity: Presuppositional Constructs in the
Turn of the Screw.” Style 25.1 (1991): 71-88. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 11
October 2011.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Attic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Lamont, Peter. “Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence.” Historical Journal 47.4
(2004): 897-920. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 28 September 2011.
MacPike, Loralee. “Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in ‘The Yellow
Wallpaper’.” American Literary Criticism, 1870-1910 8.3 (1975): 286-288. JSTOR. Web.
12 October 2011.

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O’Neal, Paul R. “The Meaning of Mental Illness within the Victorian Mental Health Act: The
Problem of Definition.” Australian Social Work 56.2 (2003): 107-115. Academic Search
Premiere. Web. 28 September 2011.

Smajicm Srdjan. “The Trouble with Ghost Seeing: Vision, Ideology, and Genre in the Victorian
Ghost Story.” English Literary History 70.4 (2003): 1107-1135. Academic Search
Premiere. Web. 28 September 2011.

Tuveson, Ernest. “The Turn of the Screw: A Palimpsest.” Studies in English Literature 12.4
(1972): 783-800. JSTOR. Web. 12 October 2011.

Williams, Tom A. “The Origin of Supernatural Explanations.” The Journal of Abnormal
Psychology. 10.4 (1915): 236-240. PsychARTICLES. Web. 12 October 2011.

Wolfreys, Julian. Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality, Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature. New
York: Palgrave, 2002.

Wooley, Jacqueline D., Chelsea A. Cornelius, and Walter Lacy. “Developmental Changes in the
Use of Supernatural Explanations for Unusual Events.” Journal of Cognition and Culture
11.3/4 (2011): 311-337. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 12
October 2011.